Weekly UK Media, Travel, Consumer & Social Update — 5 May, 2021

Accurate as of: 05 May 2021

UK Media & Consumer Market Update

Current UK status

Visit https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ for all official information.

• As of 4pm on 04 May 2021, a total of 156,093,792 coronavirus (COVID-19) tests have been conducted in the UK. 4,423,796 people have tested positive.
• 34,667,904 people have had their first dose of the vaccination, while 15,630,007 have been fully vaccinated.
• 151,243 patients in the UK who tested positive for COVID-19 have died.
• Guidance for the current lockdown rules in England can be found

UK travel restrictions:

Visit www.gov.uk/government/organisations/foreign-commonwealth-office for all official information.

• Boris Johnson has laid out a roadmap out of lockdown, with key touchstones to further open up the country on 17 May and 21 June.
• Currently, UK residents can only travel internationally where they first have a legally permitted reason to leave home. In addition, they should consider the public health advice in the country they are visiting.
• In order to enter the UK, a negative Covid-19 test must be completed 72 hours before travel and presented to staff on planes, trains, and ferries in order to board. A further two tests must be completed at the travellers’ expense during their quarantine before they can return to day-to-day life.
• People entering the UK from high-risk countries, or “red” countries, will have to quarantine in a hotel at their own expense for 10 days.
• A travel “green list” is expected to be announced by the government in early May.

Latest updates:

• The travel industry is still waiting for the green list to be announced by the government and predictions are pointing to Friday 7^th May, when local elections are over, as the most likely date. (Telegraph)
• The Independent is constantly updating their traffic light FAQ page, which gives useful insights on what we can expect when the green list announced. (Independent)
• Spain, Greece and France are among countries that could be added to the safe “green list” by the end of June under the traffic light system being drawn up by Downing Street for international travel. British holidaymakers are expected to be freed to travel to Europe’s top holiday destinations next month after Brussels opened the door to vaccinated travellers from the start of June. (Telegraph)
• TUI is offering COVID test packages from £20 per person, including delivery and return costs. Four packages have been created to make inbound and outbound testing affordable for travel to countries on the soon-to-be-confirmed green and amber lists. (Travel Gossip)
• Meanwhile, Madeira is to give all overseas visitors one free PCR test as part of a package to attract guests this summer. The test can be taken on arrival or departure, with results in 24 hours and discounted rates for any other tests needed. (TTG)
• Spain has announced British holidaymakers will be allowed into the country from June onwards even if they have not received a Covid-19 vaccine. Spanish Tourism Minister, Fernando Valdés Verelst, said those with a valid digital health certificate as well as those who have not been inoculated would be included in the plans. (iNews)
• More than half (56%) of Europeans are willing to travel by the end of August, latest research by the European Travel Commission reveals (Travel Weekly).
• Italy is planning to reopen to international tourism by the middle of May by introducing its own “green pass” for visitors. The country’s Prime Minister said Italy was preparing to introduce its own tourism pass ahead of a planned EU-wide health pass, as it does not want to wait. (TTG)
• The NHS app appears unlikely to be ready for use as a vaccine passport in time for when overseas travel resumes. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps previously said the health service app, currently used to book medical appointments in England, could be used to display evidence of a person’s Covid status. (Travel Weekly)

Social media:

• As ‘sound off’ remains the overwhelming way to consume social content, Instagram has officially launched their new Captions sticker for Stories. It works pretty much the way you’d expect — autocaptioning what you say in Stories, appearing in the same font and format as some of the song lyric options. The functionality is coming to Reels soon and is currently only available in English-speaking territories.
• They’ve also launched a new ‘Instagram Insider’ digital magazine for culture vultures to keep track of what’s trending across the platform. The 9-page .pdf is less an insight into the trends themselves and more into the people who are responsible for them. A curious read for anyone keen on the everchanging digital zeitgeist.
• Later today, Facebook’s Oversight Board will rule on whether Donald Trump can or cannot return to the platform. As a reminder, his account was suspended after the January 6 riots in Washington, D.C. and now the Board’s job is to determine if that was the correct decision.
• The Social Network is also pushing ahead with its plans to fully encrypt, end-to-end, messages across all its messaging tools. The UK, US, and Australian Governments have asked for ‘backdoor’ access which Facebook has refused.
• They’re also continuing to develop their Community Accelerator Program, a program that offers funding and training to Facebook group admins, or organisations with a presence in Facebook groups. Up to USD$50k will be awarded to help fund work that advances those community’s goals. Think you qualify? Apply here.
• In a last bit of Facebook news for this week, they’ve also announced the first stage of their newsletter push, wherein they’ll pay $5 million to local (American) journalists as their answer to Substack More broadly, Facebook has committed to investing $1 billion into the news industry globally over the next three years.
• As social platforms’ quarterly results continue to roll in, YouTube has reported a 49% jump in ad revenue. With $6 billion in quarterly revenue, YouTube is now on track to beat Netflix’s annual revenues. Bear in mind that Netflix has a $17 billion content budget to generate its revenue while YouTube… doesn’t. Such are the advantages of a user-generated content platform. It also helps to have over 2 billion monthly logged-in users, and a billion hours of video watched every day.
• Meanwhile, Twitter announced a 28% increase in YoY revenue in Q1 this year as they grew to 199 million Monetizable Daily Active Users. Despite the growth in revenue, cost of revenue increased as well with higher R&D expenses and a 20% jump in overall staff numbers.
• Twitter also continues its ongoing series of acquisitions, they’ve acquired a company called Scroll. It works like this: You subscribe to Scroll and can see through content, and Scroll contributes part of your subscription to the sites from which it sources that content. Supplementary to Revue, Scroll is another step into Twitter’s developing subscription process.
• As TikTok continues to mature its ad offering, they’re building a new Lead Generation ad type to help capture user information. Entered user info will be stored in TikTok, available for download at any time, and able to be integrated straight into your CRM. It’s a Facebook lead gen ad but not TikTok, it’s not a reinvention of the wheel. That said, they’re now available to all advertisers globally so give it a crack if you like.
• TikTok has also announced a small organisational restructure — current CFO Shouzi Chew will become the CEO and the interim head, Vanessa Pappas, will become the COO. This means that the US Government’s scrap with the app has simply replaced their American CEO for a Chinese one.

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